Key events
Starmer says the Tories have been smearing a working class woman.
He says Truss blames everyone, including the “poor old lettuce”, who she claims was part of the deep state.
It is not clear if Starmer is quoting the book, or the Daily Star splash.
Sunak says people would pay more tax under Labour.
Keir Starmer also welcomes the postmasters. And he says it is 35 years since the Hillsborough disaster. There must be a Hillsborough law, he says.
He says he has a copy of Liz Truss’s book. “It’s a rare unsigned copy.” She claims her kamikaze budget was “the happiest moment” of her premiership. Has Sunak met anyone with a mortgage who agrees?
Sunak says Starmer should spend less time reading that book, and more time reading Angela Rayner’s tax advice.
Tory MPs are cheering as if Sunak were Churchill.
Selaine Saxby (Con) asks about bus services in her North Devon constituency. She blames the Lib Dem council for not reopening a bus station.
Sunak says the government is giving Devon £17m for bus services. He has a pop at the Lib Dems too.
Rishi Sunak starts by saying there are post office operators in the gallery watching. It has been one of the country’s biggest legal scandals, he says.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Sunak faces Starmer at PMQs
PMQs is starting soon.
Richard Holden was the Conservative MP who did most to publicise the so-called “beergate” controversy and to get Durham police to investigate claims that Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner broke lockdown rules at a Labour event in 2021. In some respects Holden’s campaign was a complete flop. Starmer and Rayner were exonerated by the police, and Starmer got credit for promising that he would resign if he was found to have broken the law. But, for Holden, it was a career highlight. Tory HQ liked the fact that the row distracted Starmer and put him on the defensive for months, and without “beergate” it is hard to imagine that Holden would have ended up as Tory chair.
Now he is trying the same strategy with Rayner, and the controversy about the sale of the council home she brought long before she became an MP. In response to the news that Greater Manchester police are investigating a number of aspects of this case, Holden issued a statement this morning saying:
Despite multiple allegations about the most senior member of his team, Sir Keir Starmer is still refusing to deal with the serious ethics scandal engulfing Angela Rayner because he is too weak to lead.
He should show some leadership and instruct Angela Rayner to publish her legal advice.
One of the papers that has pushed this story most aggressively is the Times. But, to their credit, today they have published a column from Matthew Parris, one of their star writes (at least for now?), suggesting it’s all a non-story and that it is being driven by “misogyny and class condescension”.
Much good sense from Matthew Parris in the @thetimes today about the media hypocrisy exaggerating wildly the significance of allegations against Angela Rayner pic.twitter.com/xesi73SN0A
— Chris Rennard 🔶💙🇺🇦 (@LordRennard) April 17, 2024
Police looking into ‘a number of assertions’ about Angela Rayner
Labour has said it remains “completely confident” that Angela Rayner has complied with all rules, after the chief constable of Greater Manchester police said she was facing investigation “over a number of assertions knocking about”, Aletha Adu reports.
There are two urgent questions in the Commons today: a Labour one on Gaza, and a Lib Dem one on the deportation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan.
AFTER 1230 TODAY:
1. Urgent question: @DavidLammy asking for a statement on humanitarian situation in Gaza.
2. Urgent question: @wendychambLD asking for a statement on the deportation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) April 17, 2024
The second one may prompt some comment on the Rwanda bill. In the House of Lords yesterday the Labour peer Vernon Coaker said Pakistan has used the UK’s legislation to justify its policy of deporting refugees back to Afghanistan.
At a dramatic business committee hearing in February Henry Staunton, who was sacked as Post Office chairman by Kemi Badenoch, revealed that the disciplinary inquiry cited by Badenoch as one reason for his removal was in fact an inquiry into Nick Read, the current Post Office chief executive.
This morning the Post Office has issued a statement saying that inquiry has now concluded and that Read has been exonerated. It said:
Over the last few months an independent barrister has been investigating a Speak Up complaint into various allegations, which included a number of misconduct allegations against our CEO, Nick Read. Following several interviews and examination of documents by the barrister, Nick has been exonerated of all the misconduct allegations and has the full and united backing of the board to continue to lead the business.
The board regards the Speak Up process as critical to the open and supportive culture it wants to encourage at the Post Office. The integrity of that Speak Up process relies on confidentiality for whistleblowers and therefore we will not be providing further detail on this or any other Speak Up investigation. It is unacceptable that this specific process was referred to in the public domain but notwithstanding that, Post Office wants to make clear that Speak Up allegations will always be thoroughly and consistently investigated, whoever they are aimed at.
NatCon conference to resume after Brussels court overturns closure order
The NatCon conference featuring Nigel Farage, Suella Braverman and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, among its speakers is resuming today after a Brussels court overturned a local mayor’s decision to close it down. Lisa O’Carroll has the story.
Cameron says Israelis ‘making decision’ to retaliate against Iran
David Cameron, the foreign secretary, has said that Israel is gearing up to retaliate after the mass Iranian drone and missile attack launched on Saturday night.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem this morning, where he has meetings scheduled with senior figures including Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, Cameron said:
It’s right to have made our views clear about what should happen next, but it’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act. We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible. And in a way that, as I said yesterday, is smart as well as tough.
But the real need is to refocus back on Hamas, back on the hostages, back on getting the aid in, back on getting a pause in the conflict in Gaza.
On Monday Cameron was urging the Israelis not to retaliate, saying they should “take the win” and not do anything to escalate the conflict.
Martin Belam has more coverage of this on his Middle East crisis live blog.
Sunak claims fall in inflation shows ‘plan is working’, despite drop being less than expected
The UK’s annual inflation rate fell by less than expected in March to 3.2%, complicating the timing of a first Bank of England interest rate cut, Richard Partington reports.
But that has not stopped Rishi Sunak claiming the latest figures show his economic policy is working. In a clip for broadcasters he said:
Today’s figures show that after a tough couple of years, our economic plan is working and inflation continues to fall.
Having been 11% when I became prime minister, it’s now fallen to just over 3%, the lowest level in two-and-a-half years.
We have also seen energy bills falling, mortgage rates falling and, just this week, data showed people’s wages have been rising faster than inflation for nine months in a row.
My simple message would be: if we stick to the plan, we can ensure that everyone has a brighter future.
Graeme Wearden has more reaction to the inflation figures on his business live blog.
Suank facing final showdown with Lords over Rwanda bill as peers fight to protect migrants who have helped British troops
Good morning. It is now more than five months since Rishi Sunak promised “emergency” legislation to address the supreme court judgment saying the government’s Rwanda deportation policy was unlawful. It has not proceeded at the pace of normal emergency legislation, but the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill is now expected to clear parliament within the next 24/36 hours, and it should become law by the end of the week. (It does not became law until the king grants royal assent, and it can take a few hours to get Charles to sign the relevant bit of paper.)
But before parliamentary officials can send the bill to the Palace, the Commons and the Lords have to agree, and there are still four outstanding issues unresolved. Last night peers passed four amendments inserting safeguards into the bill. They would:
1) Include a provision making explicit that the bill has to be enforced in accordance with international law.
2) Ensure that Rwanda cannot be treated as a safe country until the independent monitoring committee has confirmed that it is safe, and also give the committee the right to say if Rwanda no longer remains a safe country.
3) Allow officials to rule that Rwanda is not safe for particular asylum seekers.
4) Exempt people who have worked for the British army in countries like Afghanistan from deportation to Rwanda.
Normally the “ping pong” process, when a bill is shuttling between the Lords and the Commons as the two sides try to reach agreement, ends with peers capitulating, and the government getting its way. Peers are not elected and, although in theory they can block a bill at this point, most of them think they do not have the democratic right to do that.
But with some bills peers hold out for as long as possible in the hope of securing a last-minute concession, and this morning there are signs that they are going to keep pushing a bit more on at least two of the issues – 2) and 4).
On the Today programme David Anderson, a crossbench peer and the former independent reviewer of terrorist legislation for the government, confirmed that members of the Lords felt particularly strongly about these issues.
On protection for asylum seekers who have helped the British army [point 4)], Anderson pointed out that the majority in the Lords in favour of this last night was particularly large – 57 votes. The Labour party is focusing on this issue, and this morning Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, retweeted a letter from colleagues urging the government to back down on this point.
Commons will vote again today on whether to send Afghans who served alongside British armed forces to Rwanda.
People who put their lives at risk helping UK & who UK Govt promised to help in return.
Truly, truly shameful that Tory MPs are insisting they go. Govt must rethink pic.twitter.com/vQohe9iCDl
— Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) April 17, 2024
But Anderson said he felt particularly strongly about point 2), which he said addressed the “lie” at the centre of the bill, the claim that Rwanda is a safe country. He said the bill as drafted says Rwanda will be judged as safe “for all time” and that “there is simply no mechanism to change it”. He went on:
The problem is, we have no evidence that Rwanda is safe. All the evidence that is put before us demonstrates that at the moment it is not. The supreme court said in November it wasn’t safe. We signed a treaty with Rwanda which was supposed to remedy the defects, and this Act will come into force when the treaty comes into force. But even the treaty itself accepts that signing the treaty doesn’t make Rwanda safe.
Anderson said the “very modest” amendment being pushed by the Lords would say Rwanda will only be considered safe when the government’s monitoring committee confirms that. He said its members were handpicked by the government and included Alexander Downer, a former Australian foreign minister who is a “great proponent of the offshoring of asylum seekers”. Anderson went on:
All this amendment would say is that, instead of us in parliament in London being expected to assert in legislation that Rwanda is safe, when the evidence is including, from the government itself last night, that it isn’t currently safe, it’s a work in progress – instead of having to sign up to that untruth, the government would invite the monitoring committee to certify that Rwanda is safe and when it is safe, the flights can begin.
And should by any chance Rwanda ever cease to be a safe country, well the monitoring committee should say that as well.
Anderson also said any amendments that might have delayed the bill, or blocked it, had been dropped by the Lords.
Here is the agenda for the day.
12pm: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.
After 12.45pm: MPs debate on the latest Lords amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill. There are four Lords amendments the government wants to vote down and the divisions will take place after a debate lasting up to an hour.
Afternoon: Peers are expected to vote again on the Rwanda bill.
Also, David Cameron is in Israel, where he is due to meet a range of leaders, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
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